Day Thirteen

I’m not crazy!

I…

At least I don’t think I am.

I returned to the Mirage. I know what you’re thinking, how stupid was that? Still, I didn’t get any sleep last night. I just tossed and turned, thinking about what I had done. Who… or what, was that I had shot? It haunted me, and I knew I would never get any peace until I found out.

So I went back.

But there was nothing there! Just empty carpet, a gaudy colored pattern staring up from where a corpse should have been. No way anything could have survived that! One stopped it, three more killed it. It was dead!

Absentmindedly I went to pull out my pistol. I don’t know why. I know what I did, and I know what the pistol did. Still, I reached for it… but it wasn’t there. I patted down all of my pockets. Nothing. Panic gripped me with the realization that I was unarmed, standing in a room that had some creepy shadow-thing lurking around, perhaps alive and pissed that I shot it yesterday.

So I ran.

When I jumped into my SUV, I searched for my pistol. Perhaps it had dropped under my seat? Had I stuck it in the glove box? Laid it on the back seat? No. I hadn’t even brought it.

I tore my house apart looking for it. The bedroom, kitchen, my office… it was nowhere to be found. I had not let it out of my sight since that first day, and now I couldn’t remember where the hell I left it!

I’m not sure what took me to my closet. To the top shelf. To the locked gun box. I guess it’s just that weird desire to search everywhere when you can’t find something. It is where I had always kept it. Well, until the night the world stopped.

I pulled the gun case down, unclipped the key from its hook. Stupid, I know. There was no way it was there.

But it was there. Locked in its case. Trigger lock securely in place. And worse… nine 9mm rounds sat in the box next to the gun. Nine…

I had fired four. One to stop it. Three more to kill it. I know I did. I can still see the image in my mind. My hand still shakes when I think about that creature lunging for me. How the lights dimmed around it, like some strange localized black hole event.

I’m not crazy.

I’m not…